Tuesday, 25 May 2021

Book Spotlight: Chateau Laux by David Loux #HistoricalFiction #ChateauLaux #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @ChateauLaux @maryanneyarde

 



Chateau Laux

By David Loux



Publication Date: April 6, 2021
Publisher: Wire Gate Press
Page Length: 292 Pages
Genre: Historical/Literary Fiction

A young entrepreneur from a youthful Philadelphia, chances upon a French aristocrat and his family living on the edge of the frontier. Born to an unwed mother and raised by a disapproving and judgmental grandfather, he is drawn to the close-knit family. As part of his courtship of one of the patriarch’s daughters, he builds a château for her, setting in motion a sequence of events he could not have anticipated.

Where to buy

David Loux


David Loux is a short story writer who has published under pseudonym and served as past board member of California Poets in the Schools. Chateau Laux is his first novel. He lives in the Eastern Sierra with his wife, Lynn.

Social Media Links:


Tour Schedule



















Monday, 10 May 2021

Book Spotlight: Pied Piper by Keith Stuart #HistoricalFiction #WW2 #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @len_maynard @maryanneyarde

 



Pied Piper

By Keith Stuart



Publication Date: 1st March 2021
Publisher: LMP- Len Maynard Publishing
Page Length: 176 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction / WWII 

In September 1939 the British Government launched Operation Pied Piper. To protect them from the perils of German bombing raids, in three days millions of city children were evacuated - separated from their parents. 

This story tells of two families: one whose children leave London and the other which takes them in. We share the ups and downs of their lives, their dramas and tragedies, their stoicism and their optimism. But. unlike many other stories and images about this time, this one unfolds mainly through the eyes of Tom, the father whose children set off, to who knew where, with just a small case and gas mask to see them on their way.

Where to buy:

This novel is free to read with #KindleUnlimited subscription. 

Keith Stuart


Keith Stuart (Wadsworth) taught English for 36 years in Hertfordshire schools, the county in which he was born and has lived most of his life. Married with two sons, sport, music and, especially when he retired after sixteen years as a headteacher, travel, have been his passions. Apart from his own reading, reading and guiding students in their writing; composing assemblies; writing reports, discussion and analysis papers, left him with a declared intention to write a book. Pied Piper is ‘it’.  Starting life as a warm-up exercise at the Creative Writing Class he joined in Letchworth, it grew into this debut novel.

Social Media Links:








Thursday, 6 May 2021

#HistoricalFiction author, Jennifer Anton, is talking about the inspiration behind her fabulous novel - Under the Light of the Italian Moon #Inspiration #amwriting @boldwomanwrites @maryanneyarde

 




Under the Light of the Italian Moon
By Jennifer Anton




Publication Date: 8th March 2021
Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Page Length: 394 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Biographical Fiction

A promise keeps them apart until WW2 threatens to destroy their love forever

Fonzaso Italy, between two wars

Nina Argenta doesn’t want the traditional life of a rural Italian woman. The daughter of a strong-willed midwife, she is determined to define her own destiny. But when her brother emigrates to America, she promises her mother to never leave.

When childhood friend Pietro Pante briefly returns to their mountain town, passion between them ignites while Mussolini forces political tensions to rise. Just as their romance deepens, Pietro must leave again for work in the coal mines of America. Nina is torn between joining him and her commitment to Italy and her mother.

As Mussolini’s fascists throw the country into chaos and Hitler’s Nazis terrorise their town, each day becomes a struggle to survive greater atrocities. A future with Pietro seems impossible when they lose contact and Nina’s dreams of a life together are threatened by Nazi occupation and an enemy she must face alone…

A gripping historical fiction novel, based on a true story and heartbreaking real events.

Spanning over two decades, Under the Light of the Italian Moon is an epic, emotional and triumphant tale of one woman’s incredible resilience during the rise of fascism and Italy’s collapse into WWII.




What my Grandmother Left Me:

The Inspiration Behind Under the Light of the Italian Moon by Jennifer Anton

I started writing Under the Light of the Italian Moon in 2006, which became the year of coming to a new understanding of womanhood. I was pregnant with my daughter, and at my baby shower, aunts and cousins surrounded me in blessings. My Italian grandmother sat to the side, a quiet spectator. That night, she called an ambulance and never left the hospital. Two months later, I had my daughter via an emergency c-section, then went into heart failure, causing me to have to leave my baby at home with my mom. Doctors tried to save my malfunctioning heart. I recovered—but my grandmother did not. She died, never getting to meet my daughter. I wondered what of hers I could give to my child to make sure she was remembered. 

She had told me little about her life in Italy. I still remember the night I asked her about WWII in Italy, because we were studying WWII in highschool. She shared that Nazis had occupied her town, friends had been killed in their atrocities. For the first time, I heard the name of a town, Fonzaso – where she lived the beginning seventeen years of her life. She admitted that she hadn’t wanted to leave, but she needed to stay with her family. I tucked this information into my memory. As a teenager, I didn’t have the inclination to follow up on questions forming in my head when I heard those words: Nazis, Fonzaso, partisans, WWII. It was hard to associate all of that with my grandma, who loved to sit in her Daniel Green slippers and make polenta on Sundays. I was American, so was she, I thought. It was only her meals, her infrequent Italian demands (Basta!) and her phone calls abroad in Italian that told me she was different. But I never considered her what she was—an immigrant. 

In 2006, when she died, a notebook on my counter held questions I had intended to ask about her childhood in Italy and during WWII. Instead, I filled pages with her eulogy, written as a letter to my daughter to introduce her to her great grandmother. At the wake people spoke of her youth: gymnastics competitions we had never heard about, and made us wonder if we fully knew the woman who I had called Grandma Lasia. My mom, who never speaks in public, stood up with a stronger voice than I had ever heard her use, and spoke about her mother. It was an epiphany moment for me. Mothers, daughters, grandmothers—our connection flashed in front of me, as boldly as sunlight in my eyes.

Strong Italian Women. Authors ancestors.

There began the fourteen-year journey of researching and writing my first novel. The questions had to be answered. The stories had to be told. I was the only one to do it. Like raising a second child, I gave writing and researching my early mornings, late nights, vacations and weekends. I visited my grandmother’s sister with my tape recorder and notepad, documenting stories. I called cousins in Canada who had grown up in Fonzaso with my grandmother, asked them questions and listened. I wrote, researched and wrote some more. 

But you can’t write a novel about Italy without truly understanding the country. So, I applied for my Italian citizenship and travelled to meet family in Fonzaso and Serena del Grappa. I hired translators and consumed large amounts of coffee, polenta, eggplant parmigiana, prosecco, biscotti, wine and grappa while sitting across from elderly relatives. Their eyes glistened as they answered my questions—going back, remembering. Looking at them, I did not see age spots and grey hair; I saw them as they were in my book, when Mussolini implemented his egotistical plan and Nazis occupied their town. I shook my head time and again at their stories, the atrocities they witnessed but never mentioned, until you asked. 


Researching, author and her aunt.

It struck me when I met with them that they had stayed while so many had left. In fact, I interviewed four Italians who emigrated to the U.S. and Canada, and four who remain in or near Fonzaso after the war. It was strange to think that my grandmother was the link. When I saw her, sitting in the chair with the phone to her ear, nylons rolled down around her ankles in her housecoat, she was speaking to these people. She was keeping her connection to Italy. But the rest of my family had only known Americanness. We didn’t feel the link. Had I not had the curiosity and gone back; had I not written the novel, it is possible these connections would have been broken forever.  

My novel, Under the Light of the Italian Moon, is biographical fiction.  It takes the stories and history of my family and the times and weaves them together with a fictional thread to build a story I hope readers want to read. Like The Crown or books like The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris and Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan, real people’s lives mingle with fiction to tell stories that needed to be remembered. I worked with the best editors I could find, starting with Sally Orson-Jones and then Angela Myers, who had edited The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey. 

It took me fourteen years to write my novel. I know Under the Light of the Italian Moon would not be what it is if it had taken any less time. Over these years, I have watched my mother grow into her role as nonna. I have watched my baby girl grow into a teenager. I am more certain than ever that the strength of the world is in its women—that the path forward is through aspiring to love. 

The book is done, it published on March 8th, International Women’s Day. My grandmother helped make it happen. She is in heaven, smiling and knowing she never left me, knowing I brought her back to Italy.  


Where to buy:


Jennifer Anton

Jennifer Anton is an American/Italian dual citizen born in Joliet, Illinois and now lives between London and Lake Como, Italy. A proud advocate for women's rights and equality, she hopes to rescue women's stories from history, starting with her Italian family.

Social Media Links: WebsiteTwitter FacebookInstagramPinterestBookBubAmazon Author PageGoodreadsYouTube









Check out Lake of Widows by Liza Perrat #HistoricalFiction #WomensFiction #DualTimeline #HistoricalFrenchFiction #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub @cathiedunn

Lake of Widows  By Liza Perrat Publication Date: 19/10/2024 Publisher: Perrat Publishing Pages: 345 Pages Genre: Historical Women’s Fiction ...